Annual Meeting Registration
We here at AAUP Oregon are excited to announce that our Annual Conference will be held on Saturday, May 1, 10am-1pm via Zoom.
Register here to receive the Zoom link.
Our Annual Meeting brings together AAUP Oregon members and allies to coordinate our statewide efforts in support of academic workers and quality higher education. This work has never been more important than it is at this moment. From the halls of the State Capitol in Salem to the streets in Klamath Falls, AAUP members are at the forefront of this important work.
Our focus this year will be on the “New Deal for Higher Education (NDHE): Oregon and the Nation.”
Our featured speakers are:
Charles Toombs is a Professor of Africana Studies at San Diego State University (SDSU). His areas of specialization and research include: Africana literature (African American, African, and Caribbean), American literature, and Black Queer Studies. His degrees are: BA (English), MA (English), MS (Industrial Relations), Ph.D. (English), all from Purdue University. He is Vice President of the California Faculty Association (CFA) and SDSU CFA and AAUP Chapter Presidents. He has published several works on African American literature and culture, including, “Harlem Renaissance in San Diego: New Negroes and Community” in The Harlem Renaissance in the American West, Routledge, 2012 and “African American Uprising” in California Literature, Cambridge UP, 2015. He has presented papers, chaired panels, and served on panels at professional meetings and conferences, including lectures and workshops on African American Literature and Africana Studies at Gorlovka State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages, Gorlovka, Ukraine. He is a faculty consultant to the Educational Testing Service. He was selected as African American Educator of San Diego Country for 2011 by Phi Delta Kappa, Inc. He is committed to social and cultural justice, and is the 2014 San Diego State University Faculty Diversity Award recipient.
Christopher Newfield is Director of Research at the Independent Social Research Foundation and was Distinguished Professor of Literature and American Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he taught for thirty years. His areas of research are Critical University Studies, critical theory, quantification studies, the intellectual and social effects of the humanities, and U.S. cultural history before the Civil War and after World War II. He has written a trilogy of books on the university as an intellectual and social institution: Ivy and Industry: Business and the Making of the American University, 1880-1980 (Duke University Press, 2003); Unmaking the Public University: The Forty Year Assault on the Middle Class (Harvard University Press, 2008); and The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016), which has now appeared in paperback. His research on universities has emerged from longtime experience with university planning and budget, as he spent many years chairing budget committees on his campus and for the University of California systemwide Senate. He is currently a vice-president of the Modern Languages Association. He is co-author of What Metrics Matter? Academic Life in the Quantified University (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2021) and is co-editor of The Limits of the Numerical (University of Chicago Press, 2021). He has served as co-PI on multi-year grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and has co-authored a film, What Happened to Solar Innovation? He also writes about American intellectual and social history (The Emerson Effect, University of Chicago Press), and has co-edited Mapping Multiculturalism (University of Minnesota Press) with Avery F. Gordon. He blogs on higher education policy at Remaking the University, and has written for the Huffington Post, Inside Higher Ed, The Chronicle of Higher Education, WonkHE (UK), The Guardian’s Higher Education Network, and the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Michael Dembrow is the state senator for District 23, covering portions of NE and SE Portland and the city of Maywood Park. First elected by voters in 2008 to the state house, he is serving his third elected term in the Senate after being appointed to the seat in November 2013. Voters re-elected Michael to the Senate in November 2014 and again in 2016 and 2020.
Michael currently serves as Chair of the Senate Education Committee. He also sits on the Judiciary Committee, the Energy and Environment Committee, and the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Education.
During his time in the legislature, Michael has been a leader in successful efforts to raise Oregon’s minimum wage, implement paid sick days for Oregon workers, substantially increase funding for career and technical education across the state, and fight wage theft. He was also involved in overhauling Oregon’s higher education governance structure to reduce the compartmentalization of higher education and workforce development. In the past few years, his focus has turned from workforce issues to the environment and criminal justice reform. He is leading the fight to establish a cap on greenhouse-gas emissions in Oregon, while also working on youth sentencing reforms, increasing prison education opportunities and removing barriers faced by ex-offenders as they reenter society and the workforce.
In addition to his legislative committee assignments, Michael also serves on the Oregon Workforce Investment Board, the Oregon Youth Conservation Corps Advisory Committee, the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education, and the Oregon Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander Affairs.
He is a member of the National Conference of State Legislatures bipartisan Task Force on Immigration and the States, which works on a variety of issues related to immigration. He led the effort to extend tuition equity and other opportunities for Oregon’s “Dreamers,” undocumented young people who have been the collatoral damage of our nation’s broken immigration system.
Michael is a retired English instructor at Portland Community College’s Cascade campus in North Portland. He taught writing and film studies at the college beginning in 1981, and served as the President of the PCC faculty union for 16 years. He continued to teach one or two classes per term after being elected to the House in 2008, and recently retired fully from teaching.
Jennifer Kerns
Ph. D in U.S. and Comparative Women’s History from the University of Arizona (2002)
NTTF for Portland State University’s Department of History since 2000; affiliate faculty with Women Gender and Sexuality Studies
PSU-AAUP Union Member Volunteer since 2014–first as a Unit Rep, VP for Membership and Organizing 2017-2020, chapter President since May 2020
5th generation Oregonian, mother of two teenagers, two cats, and a COVID19 puppy.
Jaime Rodriguez
Jaime was elected President by acclamation at the May 4th AFT-Oregon 67th Convention. He comes with over 20 years of labor involvement with his local: The Portland Community College Federation of Faculty and Academic Professionals, Local 2277. He served as worksite leader, Campus VP and elected to VP of Political and Legislative Action in 2010 and elected 4 times. In 2014, he was appointed to the AFT-Oregon State Council and won election in 2015 and 2017.
Over the years, he has attended numerous AFT Conventions, Winter Schools and earned his LERC LEAD Certificate after attending summer school from 2005 to 2007. He is a graduate of the first class of the Oregon Labor Candidate School in 2013. He currently sits on the OLCS Board as the only graduate and state federation president. He ran for Hillsboro School Board 2013 and 2015. Although unsuccessful he was appointed to the Hillsboro School District’s Budget committee in 2013 where he gave a voice for labor.
He has been part of three bargaining teams at his local and three temporary campaign workers in partnership with AFT-Oregon and Oregon AFL-CIO. Along the way he has earned the AFT-Oregon’s John Conner Memorial Award in recognition of his selfless, spirited enthusiasm and devotion to union causes and this past year he was awarded the Outstanding Contribution to Public Awareness in recognition for his contribution to the general’s public awareness on issues important to AFT-Oregon membership’s.
His free time is dedicated to serving on the Boards of Hillsboro School Foundation, Centro Cultural de Washington County, and a commissioner on the City of Hillsboro Park and Recreation Department.
